Spinal Cord Injury
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December 3rd, 2004
"Permanent paralysis may someday be prevented using liquid injection"
An animal study using injections of a man made liquid to help treat spinal cord injuries and prevent permanent paralysis may someday be a reality, based on initial study results. Appearing in the Journal of Neurotrauma''s December edition, Richard Borgens, PhD, hopes one day ambulances could carry the chemical for use at accident scenes to prevent spinal damage.
The researchers used dogs that were required to have been paraplegic for 72 hours or less. Nineteen dogs received injections of PEG, or polyethylene glycol, a chemical that is safely used in other medicines, and 16 dogs got shots of another polymer - Poloxamer 188. Many of the dogs that received PEG injections healed so well it was as if the injury never occurred.
Within two weeks of treatment, according to researchers, more than half of the dogs were standing or walking. Improvements were usually noticed within three to five days, according to the study, with most dogs injected with PEG benefiting from restored sensitivity within 36 hours and mobility within three weeks.
When a spinal cord injury is suffered, cells are damaged and can sometimes be torn open, losing some ability to pass along nerve impulses. Before affected cells die, they transmit a chemical to neighboring cells that sets off a chain reaction. It is believed the polymer is able to create a cellular bandage to patch over the torn membranes to short-circuit the cells ending reaction and leave nerve impulses intact.
The study results are encouraging, but the study author cautions the polymer injections are not yet close to being used among humans. Though the polymer injections will probably be incapable of mending existing cases of paralysis, researchers hope they might help future accident victims from suffering spinal cord injuries and paralysis.
The Poloxamer 188 injected dogs did show signs of improvement, but compared to the PEG injected dogs the results were not as beneficial.
